Afternoon Team
Scan shows a cover to 'Port Depot ship' Rosyth, December 1918
Was this a vessel, or Shore establishment and was it named?
Chris
I have found an officer on Ancestry - Lt Rupert Oswald Jones, RNR - awarded an OBE in July 1919 "for valuable services in charge of the Port Convoy Office, Suez"
Probably the same officer, so it looks like he "never went to sea". Hope this helps
Chris
Lieut Rupert Oswald Jones, RNR seniority 3 Aug 1911
In Nov 1918, Jan 1919 & March 1919 Navy Lists, listed under HMS Duke the RN Depot at Port Said
No mention of a Lt/ Commander rank
Frank
I'm confused - how can he be in Port Said and Rosyth at the same time?
Is that a hyphen between Rupert and Jones?
chrs
N
Nick
Well spotted. Sorry no Lt/Commander Rupert-Jones RNR listed in any of the three quoted Navy Lists
Frank
Crikey, Chris, you have a cover addressed to someone who never existed, but who was in two places at once. Where did the cover originate? Hogwarts???? ;D
chrs
Bewildered of Billericay
Hi All
Yes, confirm hyphen is present. I'm wondering if cover is from a brother or son.
Port Said also confuses me. Cover is ex Slingsby collection. He probably got it from 'Hogwarts'
Chris
You wondered whether Port Depot Ship Rosyth was an actual ship or a shore establishment. This sent me chasing.
Rosyth developed as an important naval establishment after a major construction programme was completed in late 1916. I have an artistic PPC aerial view of the base contrived early in 1916 which shows a number of land based buildings and very many ships anchored around the place, not base ships to my reckoning. Torpedo Boat Destroyers were based at Rosyth and they used a centralised censor procedure (Gould 4B82 for instance), and this is likely to have been land based.
I have a cover with a double oval cachet PORT DEPOT SHIP / ROSYTH dated 18 February 2020, interestingly post-war like yours. It has the 8 barred circle cancel and was sent from Rosyth to Messrs R Wade in Chatham. I think this was a central land based facility at Rosyth from which mail received was then distributed to the various ships or to their central depot as in the Torpedo Boat Destroyers.
Cheers
Tony
Gents
Although not my collecting area, but I am following this with interest just to see where it goes and to see if the issue is finally resolved!
Tony - do you mean 1920, rather than just last year (2020) ?
Mike :)
Gents
Borrowed Harry Potters wand and came up with:-
Acting Cummander John Archibald Rupert Jones
Appt to HMS Crescent (ex Cruiser) Depot ship at Rosyth
on 9th June 1916
Frank
OK, now that Frank has indicated we may well be dealing with someone in the real world, here are a couple of items which suggest (from the cover at least), he was at a real place
Tony
Yes Mike, should have been 1920, not 2020. It must have been all the excitement of going into Tier 4......
Tony
Hello Everyone.
Seems we now have a'Real Person' Great, and a name for what was certainly Port Depot Ship in 1916, HMS Crescent.
A purist would then ask, Did HMS Crescent remain in commission in 1919 or was she replaced with a shore establishment of another vessel?
Thanks to Everyone.
Hi all
According to "Shore Establishments of the Royal Navy (Being a list of the Static Ships and Establishments of the Royal Navy)" Compiled by Lt Cdr B Warlow RN (Maritime Books, 1992):
CRESCENT Scapa Flow, Rosyth, Depot Ship
- CRESCENT (1892) Cruiser, Submarine Depot Ship 1917, Scapa Flow 1917-18, General Depot Ship Firth of Forth 1919, sold 22/9/1921
- GLORY (1899) Battleship, renamed CRESCENT 1/5/1920 Depot Ship, sold 19/12/1922
- SUTLEJ (1899), Cruiser, overflow ship Rosyth 1917-18, incliuded in establishment CRESCENT 1918, sold 9/5/1921
So, still in commission as HMS Crescent in 1919 - no date as to when taken out of service, but sold 22/9/1921.
Hope this helps.
Mike
The cruiser CRESCENT later depot ship at Rosyth, was sold on 22nd September 1921 and broken up in Germany
The attached scan shows she was the depot ship (ex Cruiser)
Frank
As we have established HMS Crescent was the Port Depot Ship at Rosyth, I wonder whether someone could tell me when the Rev. C H Payton joined the ship? I have a nice cover with his personalised censor mark with C.H.P., but undated. I have another cover with the same framed censor mark, but without the C.H.P. dated 15.8.16, so maybe he had either left the ship by then, or joined it after?
There may have been more than one censor on board as Michael Gould notes two basic types.
Tony
Tony
Rev Charles. H Payton,appt to HMS Crescent on 8th Febuary 1915
then appt to HMS Juno (Light Cruiser) on 10th November 1915, remained on her for rest of rhe war
Frank
Well, well, well ... who'd believe it - as soon as you mentioned the C.H.P. censor I instantly thought I'm sure I have a cover/card with that censor cachet on it and low and behold I find that I have a photographic picture postcard of HMS Crescent with the C.H.P. censor cachet. It is postmarked London MAR 12 but year unclear but almost certainly from the correspondence below it would have been 1915.
I am not generally a WWI collector, let alone naval mail, but many years ago I did purchase a small number of items. Thanks for bringing this to light!
Mike :)
Nice One Mike
Great Card.
Who'd have thought that a small query on a Shore Base could develop into such an interesting topic. Now running at two pages.
Chris
A little more on HMS Crescent
Scan shows a re-directed cover to Staff Surgeon Blunt,
Crescent was stationed at Hoy February 1915 to November 1915 as an armed Guard ship.
Chris